Child abuse and neglect can have serious and lasting negative social, psychological, and physical effects on children. It is important that child protection professionals accurately assess the level of risk to a child and the need for support services. Failure to do so can have serious consequences for the child or lead to unwarranted state intervention in the family. International research shows that professionals often disagree when assessing the same child protection cases.

Content and Aim of the Research Project

Unwanted differences in the judgment of a situation are also referred to as 'noise'. First, we want to describe how pronounced noise is in child protection assessments in Switzerland. Second, we want to identify what causes noise in assessments. We are interested in whether noise in assessments is greater in certain case situations than in others (e.g., when case information is contradictory) and whether it depends on the characteristics of the professionals (e.g., their attitudes and thinking styles). Third, we want to investigate whether there are effective brief interventions that reduce noise in child protection assessments and increase the accuracy of assessments.

Scientific and social context

When professionals arrive at different assessments in the same child protection situations, this can pose an ethical, legal and professional problem. The research project will provide an empirical knowledge base for practice-oriented development projects to reduce the noise in assessments and thus enable more accurate assessments in child protection investigations.